This book is a must for anyone interested in American folksongs. It ranks right up there with the Lomax, Beldon, Hunter, and Randolph collections. It may be hard to find, and a bit pricey, but well worth the effort. I'd give it ten stars if the rating would go that high. You will enjoy this collection.
Michael Breid, a.k.a.Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour
Ozark Mountains, Arkansas

You may go to this book to find out about the Warner's fascinating song-collecting trips begun in western North Carolina in 1938 and lasting into the 1960s, but you'll find an amazing repertoire of songs waiting to be sung.

Tom Dooley is the song Frank Proffitt sang to the Warners long ago. The Kingston Trio heard Frank Warner sing it in the 1950s and made it their signature song. But it is only one of hundreds of songs that the world is waiting to hear.

Read the words of rural America in the voice of Lee Monroe Presnell, Yankee John Galusha or Grammy Fish. These are singers the Lomaxes would have spent a lot of tape on.

The songs themselves would be enough, but this is a book full of Anne Warner's scholarship and thoughtful treatment of her subject. Frank Warner's photographs will take you to a far off place.